By Andrew McCathie, dpa

Berlin (dpa) – Volkswagen’s union has warned of a breakdown in confidence in the embattled carmaker’s management following the group’s plans to launch tough spending cuts to help meet the mounting costs of an unfolding emissions scandal at the company.

Germany’s biggest union IG Metall accused the company of «a serious problem of trust» in an email to the company’s workforce that has been seen by dpa.

IG Metall has called on the company to agree to a special new contract to protect jobs and lay out investment plans in the wake of deepening tensions between the union and executives since VW admitted last September to cheating on diesel emissions tests around the world.

The union’s proposed Pact for the Future would include firm agreements on «the number of vehicles produced and investment commitments for the coming years,» said officials from IG Metall, whose leader at VW, Bernd Osterloh, is a member of the VW supervisory board.

VW indicated in November that it is planning cuts in its workforce after it announced moves to cap investment spending at 12 billion euros (14 billion dollars) in 2016 – a cut of 1 billion euros from recent years. However, the company has so far not provided any details of the cuts.

The reduction in staff could include eliminating about 3,000 administrative jobs in Germany by the end of 2017, mainly through natural attrition, dpa reported this month.

Karlheinz Blessing, who is the VW management board member responsible for human resources, told dpa that the company welcomed the IG Metall proposal.

«We see the in-house union’s letter as a very good basis for a future cooperation» Blessing said.

«Ensuring the future security of company sites was in the interests of the management,» he said, calling for speedy and constructive talks.

The last time that VW agreed to a contract with its unions ensuring job security was in 1993 at the height of an economic downturn in Europe, which forced the carmaker to introduce a four-day working week.

But now VW is facing mounting costs as a result of the lawsuits, recalls and official investigations that have been launched around the world following the emissions affair.

Tensions have also broken out on the VW group board with the online edition of the German news magazine Der Spiegel reporting on Thursday that board members were clashing over bonus payments.

The IG Metall leaders’ email to the about 120,000 VW staff members employed under union negotiated wages also comes in the wake of reports of hefty exchanges between Osterloh and Volkswagen brand chief Herbert Diess as the emissions scandal has unfolded.

The union has historically played a major role in the company’s affairs. But it now fears that VW will use the emissions scandal to cut jobs.

«We have the impression that the diesel scandal could be used slyly to make personnel cuts, which were not a topic only a few months ago,» said the letter signed by in-house union leaders at VW plants across the country.